Megan’s Second Birth

**All Photos by Jen Conway Photography

After Jack was born, I wrote down as much as I could remember and as much as pictures could tell me because I was so exhausted through the whole process, and I could tell my memory was already getting fuzzy. I was awake for 48 hours before Jack was born (most of that was prodromal labor, but it was just uncomfortable enough to keep me awake for the day and a half before active labor started) Two years later, when I look back to those days before and after Jack was born, there are large chunks that I have no memory of.

Not the case with this birth.

Everything that I know about birth patterns from working with moms over the last decade has shaped my image of how MY births should go. This is why I was awake for 48 hours before I had Jack—I was SO convinced that I was not going to progress from prodromal labor to active labor at that time because my first prodromal labor contraction was the first contraction I had ever had. The story so often is days of on and off again contractions until one day they do not go away. So, I assumed they were going to eventually wane. And they did not.

But I fell for it again with this baby! I had 1 hour of prodromal labor 3 days before Judah was born. And despite my first experience, I assumed I would have many more episodes of prodromal labor before going into active labor.

Not the case.

Other birth patterns that have shaped the image of how birth starts:

– Most women I have worked with talk about the baby dropping lower in their pelvis closer to the time they will give birth.

– Usually accompanying this dropping is less movement from the baby in the week or so leading up to birth.

Not the case with either of my births. But still something I expected.

Both Jack and Judah never dropped into my pelvis until I was actively pushing. (Bonus, I never had the feeling like I had to pee 24/7 because I never had a baby on my bladder.) And in the last few weeks before baby Judah was born, he went breech (!!), transverse (!), and the kept going from my left side to my right side and back to my left side. Just 4 days before I had him, he camped out on my right side for 2 days (not an ideal position for birth).

ALL of this to say, I was not expecting to have Judah when I did.

The day before Baby Judah was born, we went to the Farmers Market, I took an online ICPA class with Kristen Hosaka on pregnancy and birth biomechanics, and we went to a concert in the park with Jack. I was not expecting to have a baby anytime soon.

Although I did not have any significant prodromal labor leading up to the birth, the whole day before Judah was born, I had a constant Braxton Hicks contraction. My belly was as hard as a rock the whole day. It was mostly annoying and slightly uncomfortable, but Braxton Hicks contractions seem to be my uterus’s love language. I tend to get them about 50-100 times a day starting around 20 weeks. The only thing unusual about this one was that it just kept going all day.

Went to bed, slept great (thanks to my not squished bladder and homeopathic Sleep Calm). Woke up around 2:30/3am with a slight contraction. These continued on and off for the next hour and a half before I got out of bed to move around and see if they would go away—I was not going back to sleep. My husband, Rando, got out of bed shortly after around 5am when I told him what was going on. It seemed like things might be “happening.” I sent a text to my midwife, Carrie, and my doula, Julie, and told them what was going on. Nothing was strong, it seemed very mild, but my midwife emphasized many times that second-time moms usually have much faster births, and to keep her in the loop from the beginning. I told Julie I would check in with her around 6am if nothing had changed.

I cleaned the kitchen, picked up Jack’s toys, added songs to my birth playlist, hung my birth affirmations on the wall, brushed my teeth and got ready for the day. Rando blew up the birth tub and took pictures of my gigantic belly.

At some point around 5am, shortly after Rando and I got out of bed, out of nowhere, like a freight train, I was overcome with so much fear. My pregnancy and birth with Jack had no fear. I had so much confidence in him as a baby, and my body’s ability to grow, carry and birth him. But this pregnancy was filled with so much fear. My first trimester, I caught every illness that was floating around at Jack’s daycare: a couple colds, hand, foot & mouth, the flu, this cough that lasted a month.

In my last trimester, I got a fever of 102-103 with no other symptoms that lasted for 3 days, and then my temperature dropped to 96 for about a week after that. Besides feeling so listless in those first few days, I stopped feeling the baby move for large chunks of the day, and when he would move, the movements were weak. And as much as I wanted to push the panic out and tell myself that everything was okay, the fear was so palpable. (Side note -Through this entire process of being a mother, I have put trust in the process. For me, this looks going through my pregnancy the way a mom in the 1980’s would—no ultrasounds, no genetic testing, no invasive procedures. In my personal opinion, after taking care of pregnant women for the last decade and two decades of watching my friends go through routine prenatal care, I think these things lead to an intervention cascade and often bring with them a lot of fear.) I talked with my midwife about my symptoms and the baby’s lack of movement and her response was, “it’s hot in there, and Wilma (our baby’s nickname) could be feeling the effects of that and is moving less because of that—even more so because you are feeling bad and you are so connected.” But she recommended I call my GP if my mom intuition felt like something was wrong. And was always supportive of me doing an ultrasound if I felt like I needed to get a look at the baby. For the last few months of my pregnancy, I had a constant back and forth in my head about doing an ultrasound. If I thought it was wisdom and intuition nudging me towards an ultrasound or if any of my birth providers thought it was necessary, I would have done it. But ultimately I knew it was fear driving the thoughts.

In the year before Judah was born, I had witnessed several people in my life walking through devastating loss in regards to their children—still born, late term miscarriage, terminal illnesses, genetic disorders that ended in death. A month before I had Judah, a friend’s week-old baby contracted an infection and passed away. The very next day, another friend passed away shortly after giving birth to her baby. Those last two shook me to my absolute core. I wept, and prayed, and tried to trust that everything was okay with my baby. And while I was able to find so much peace in the couple of weeks before he was born, at 5am, while having mild contractions, every fear I had over the last nine months descended upon me all at once!

I sat down on our bed and just started weeping. And I cried out and told Rando that I was so scared. He took my hand and prayed for me and our baby. It was a short and simple prayer, but so powerful! The fear immediately melted away! I felt refreshed and encouraged. I started playing “Fill the Room” by Maverick City and just prayed over our room. (If you have not heard the song, it is the start of their live album, and such a beautiful prayer inviting the Holy Spirit into their worship and into the room and into everything that they do during that time.) That song ended, and I was a different person—a hopeful and joyful person.

In that mindset, I continued setting up the house.

At 6am, Jack woke up. I called my mom and told her what was going on. I asked if she could come pick up Jack just so that we could focus on whatever the day had in store for us. I told her not to rush. The contractions were getting a little stronger, and I was having to breathe and move through them, but nothing like real contractions—this all still felt pretty prodromal.

6:03am (you know the story is about to take a turn because I am using specific timestamps) I asked Julie to come over and give me her assessment of my situation. But again, told her not to rush because it was all so mild. She thought once Jack was out of bed, and the sun came up everything might slow down.

6:18am Jack got out of bed. And Julie was right, for about 10 minutes my contractions became the most mild they had been all morning.

6:24am Julie asked if she should bring her daughter to watch Jack, and I said ‘no.’ My mom was heading over soon.

6:36am Jack was playing in the empty birth tub. He was obsessed with it. We asked him if he wanted us to keep it. “Yes.” We asked him if I was going to have a baby brother or baby sister (because we did not find out the gender ahead of time), and he said “baby brother” even though for months he had been saying “baby sister” without fail.

6:38am I had the most intense contraction. I went from humming/breathing through contractions to an all out scream, and it really scared Jack. It was in that moment that this forceful question filled my mind: “How on earth am I going to do this for another 10 hours?” (but, as you will see, that question did not have any time to settle into my heart).

In the birth biomechanics class I had taken the day before, Dr. Hosaka mentioned different positions that might bring relief if there is pelvic or uterine torsion. She even mentioned a position that could help in a birth where the baby was stuck on the pubic bone. In those next 10 minutes, I tried (to no avail) every position I could think of to help manage the intensity of the contractions. Nothing was bringing relief.

6:40am We took a family picture to help cheer up Jack.

6:42am I ran to Jack’s room and Rando took Jack to the laundry room in anticipation of another strong contraction. My water broke and I was convinced I was about to have the baby alone in Jack’s room.

6:45am I came back into our bedroom and emphatically told Rando that he had to fill up the tub.

6:46am I send an SOS text to Julie and Carrie that my water had just broken and I was pushing. Julie said she was a couple miles away, and Carrie said she was on her way.

6:52am Julie arrives. She was locked out of the house for a couple minutes while Rando was tending to me.

6:54am My parents arrived to pick up a very sad, scared, crying Jack.

6:59am I got in the birth tub with about 3” of water and I had my last intense contraction.

From that moment on, I had very powerful, but not painful or fast, contractions that brought my baby into the world.

7:04am Jen, my birth photographer (she is also a licensed midwife), arrived.

I often get the question, “did Rando catch the baby?” And the answer is, ‘no one really caught the baby.’ Because it was a water birth, I had to either keep the baby’s head below the surface of the water for the entire pushout, or above the surface, but I could not go back and forth. But because the water was so shallow, I could not lift him as he was being born until enough of his body was out. So…he kind of laid on the bottom of the tub until his hips were out and then I could bring him up. Jen jokes that instead of having a water birth, I had a “creek birth” because the water level was so low.

7:07am he was born and in my arms. And this time it only took me a couple minutes before looking to see if it was a boy or a girl. (With Jack, I waited a really long time because I was just so tired and so happy to be done.)

About halfway through my pregnancy, I met with my repeat doula, Julie, and we talked through my birth with Jack. She asked me what I liked and what I would not want to repeat. And all in all, I did not think I had many things that I would not want to repeat. It was a LONG 48 hours, and the end was a lot of work, but I was able to have my homebirth, and immediately tuck into bed with Rando and Jack. That is the ultimate goal, right? Well after I birthed Judah, I realized how redeeming my birth was—which meant there was something from my first birth that needed to be redeemed. I still do not know if I have words for what was redeemed, but something was, and it was beautiful.

Judah James was brought into the world while “Refiner” by Maverick City (I promise I had other artists on my 18-hour playlist. But somehow out of the 5 Maverick City songs I had shuffling through this playlist, Judah’s birth started and finished with this one band). This particular song had such a deep part of my heart finding peace over the fear that was plaguing me at the end of my pregnancy. It might be another story for another time, but it was incredibly special that he was born to this song.

And that was it! We were done, and I had not even smudged my makeup. Our church was having a potluck that morning, and I joked that we still had time to get dressed and get to church for the potluck. My birth team did not think my ambitious musing was as funny as I did. They helped me to bed and got us all tucked in!

I was not a compliant patient with Jack, and I wanted to stay in the tub forever because I was so exhausted and the thought of having to climb out of the tub was too overwhelming. With Jack I stayed in the tub for a VERY long time after he was born: we did delayed cord clamping, Rando cut the cord, poor Paislie hung over the birth tub for who knows who long with my part of the cord in her hands so it would not drop into the water before I got out (sorry, Paislie), I asked them to add more hot water because I was so cold and starting to shake uncontrollably (probably from too much blood loss), and when they finally made me get out of the tub I cried because I did not think I had the energy to do what they were asking.

With Judah, I got out of my birth creek within minutes. I felt amazing! I was a much more compliant patient

So that is it. We got tucked into bed with our sweet baby. Shortly after my parents came to visit and Jack got to meet his new baby brother. And he was in love! He is still in love! For the next 24-hours, Rando and I kept saying, “I can’t believe I (you) just had a baby.” “I can’t believe we were at a concert last night.” “It’s wild how rested I feel AND we have a new baby.”

My midwife arrived about 20 minutes after Judah was born, and we were all tucked into bed. One of the sweetest memories I have of that morning was Carrie holding me and shedding a tear because she missed my birth. What a joy to have a sweet friend as the midwife for my children

They all spent the next 4 hours at the house, cleaning everything to the point that you would have never known a baby had just been born in the house. They stripped the sheets on my bed and threw that along with all my birth towels in the wash. They used peroxide on any blemishes that made their way to the carpets. They emptied and deflated the birth tub. Judah had his newborn exam after about 3 hours of skin to skin. They helped me to the bathroom (I had to show that I could pee by myself before they would leave me). They checked Judah’s latch and made sure he was nursing fine. They shared a toast with me (Julie and I had scotch! The rest of the group had sangria). They hugged and kissed us, and they left us alone to be a family of 4.

I love midwifery, obviously! But not just because I am some crunchy hippie who has distrust for the establishment (although those things are also true). When I got pregnant with Judah I was 37 years old. I ended up carrying him 41 ½ weeks. And both of my babies were “big” (Jack was 8lbs7oz and Judah was 8lbs12oz). All of those things have “high risk” and “intervention” written all over them. But for no reason other than the modern medical model does not like “geriatric” ladies having babies, does not like big babies, and does not really allow women to go past 39 weeks without being pushed into an induction.

In the midwifery model, I was treated like a woman whose body was created to do this. I was monitored throughout my whole pregnancy, and as long as nothing rose a red flag, I was left alone to nurture my growing baby in peace. Induction was never once mentioned. My age was never once mentioned. The size of my baby was never once mentioned. And you know what, all of those big, scary things…were not big and scary at all. My 37yo body was able to perfectly birth my big baby at 41.2 at home with no help or intervention. And it was beautiful!